We should have sent in the Marines: "Regime Change Syria."
DAMASCUS—Syria's rejection of a surprise Arab League road map to ease President Bashar al-Assad out of power deepened a split between Syrians on the most viable way out of their country's nearly yearlong bloody conflict, with neither international pressure nor domestic overhauls offering much hope for halting further violence, said many Syrians and analysts.
The Arab League plan called on Mr. Assad to hand over power to his deputy and form a national unity government. It marked the first formal call by the Arab world's highest-profile diplomatic body for Mr. Assad to relinquish power.
The League also said it would ask the United Nations Security Council to endorse the plan, underscoring the basic approach by the Syrian regime's outside opponents: attempt to deal with the crisis through international forums while sidelining the regime. But the move is a sign the window for a regionally brokered domestic solution to Syria's conflict may be closing.
Syria's government on Monday derided the proposal as a "blatant interference in its internal affairs" and evidence of the "conspiratorial scheme" the country faced.
Syria's rejection of the plan "just speaks again to the fact that [Mr. Assad is] thinking about himself and his cronies, not about his people," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, adding, "We would like to see a Security Council resolution that firmly reflects the conclusions of the Arab League report."
Protests continued to roil parts of the country on Monday, with armed conflict between government forces and their opponents moving closer to the capital. On Monday, as many as 100,000 people marched in funeral processions in Douma, 12 miles from the capital, to mourn victims of more than three days of fighting there between army defectors and the military, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Activists said the crowd was the largest the restive suburb—one of several protest hot spots that encircle Damascus— has seen since protests broke out in March.
An Arab League observers' mission to Syria, criticized by Syria's opposition and human-rights groups, appears to be in place for a second month. The League recommended a one-month extension that was valid under the original deal. Syria's government didn't mention the mission in its denunciation of the Arab League plan.
As long as a rising economic tide kept incomes afloat, concerns about inequality rarely surfaced for long.Continue reading.
Only after four years in which income disparities actually narrowed a bit — typical of recessions — did last year's emergence of Occupy Wall Street make inequality a big political issue.
But, as the movement's "We are the 99%" slogan comprising almost everyone suggests, what really has people upset is the fact that everyone's slice of the pie, on average, has gotten a bit smaller.
The nation has now gone through a five-year stretch in which real per capita disposable income has shrunk, the first time that's happened since the demobilization after World War II.
Disposable per capita income equaled $37,000 at the end of November vs. an inflation-adjusted $37,060 in September 2006, Commerce Department data show.
The long drought largely reflects 2008-09 income declines, but real per capita disposable income also fell 0.9% in the 12 months through November.
Official data show that the U.S. economy finally recouped recessionary losses in the third quarter of 2011, eclipsing the prior GDP peak at the end of 2007. But those statistics, while marking a postwar record for futility, still paint too bright of a picture.
TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney leveled a searing attack against Newt Gingrich’s character and raised pointed questions about his ability to lead during a debate here Monday evening, taking urgent steps to slow Mr. Gingrich’s rising momentum in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination.Continue reading.
For the first time, Mr. Gingrich strode onto the stage as an indisputable equal to Mr. Romney after dislodging him from his confident perch as the front-runner in the race with his commanding victory on Saturday in South Carolina. Mr. Romney dug into his rival’s tenure as House speaker and the ensuing years, when he advised companies like the mortgage giant Freddie Mac, a period for which Mr. Romney branded him as “an influence peddler in Washington.”
“You are looking for a person who can lead this country at a very critical time,” Mr. Romney said. “The speaker was given the opportunity to be the leader of our party in 1994, and after four years he resigned in disgrace.”
Mr. Gingrich painted Mr. Romney’s attacks as desperate and riddled with inaccuracies. He embraced his confrontational style and defended himself forcefully, but his responses came without the bombast that has delighted crowds throughout the race.
“They’re not sending somebody to Washington to manage the decay,” Mr. Gingrich said. “They’re sending somebody to Washington to change it, and that requires somebody who’s prepared to be controversial when necessary.”
The new landscape of the Republican campaign came into sharp view, with Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich often seeming as though they had traded personalities for the evening. It was clear from the outset that the tables had turned, as Mr. Romney repeatedly tried to provoke Mr. Gingrich, who has built up a reputation as a formidable debater.
“I’m not going to spend the evening trying to chase Governor Romney’s misinformation,” Mr. Gingrich said, telegraphing his plan to try to take the high road. “I think the American public deserves a discussion about how to beat Barack Obama.”
Yet on the eve of President Obama’s State of the Union address, the debate was notable for the lack of time devoted to Mr. Obama. It was the first sign of the consequences of a drawn-out Republican nominating contest, with Mr. Obama taking a back seat to terse re-examinations of the candidates’ records.
The notion of Mitt Romney sweeping or nearly sweeping the January contests and putting the nomination race to rest are gone -- even with a Florida win. But the idea of a momentum contest -- one that will typically develop behind the frontrunner, no matter how nominal -- is not completely dead. Romney remains the frontrunner. The former Massachusetts governor is viewed as the establishment choice and is the only candidate to this point to have placed in the top two in each of the first three contests. He is still the favorite to build a consensus around his candidacy -- just not as much as he was in the five days or so after the New Hampshire primary.And see also Wall Street Journal, "The Gingrich Challenge" (via Memeorandum).
But the question remains just how will Romney, or any other candidate for that matter, build a consensus and win the nomination. There are two main avenues from FHQ's perspective; one narrow and one fairly broad. The narrow path to the nomination is that Mitt Romney bounces back from the South Carolina primary, wins Florida, uses his organizational advantage over Gingrich and Santorum in the February caucus states, and then wins in Arizona and Michigan. The broader path is one that devolves into a contest-by-contest struggle; a battle for delegates the end game of which is the point where one candidate has a wide enough delegate margin that cannot be overcome given the number of delegates to be allocated remaining.
Reporting from Ormond Beach, Fla.—More at Astute Bloggers, "MITT FIGHTS BACK!"
Mitt Romney opened an aggressive new phase of the Republican presidential campaign as he cruised into Florida on Sunday night — casting Newt Gingrich as an unethical politician whose temperament and unreliability led to his ouster as speaker of the House in the 1990s.
After a week in which he conceded his Iowa win to Rick Santorum after a recount and lost to Gingrich by double digits in South Carolina, Romney acknowledged that the Republican contest had become a three-man race. But he took a much tougher tone toward Gingrich – directly raising the ethics investigation that Gingrich faced in the 1990s and demanding that Gingrich provide an accounting for the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“We’re not choosing a talk show host," Romney said, alluding to his rival’s strong debate performances that helped shift momentum in his favor in South Carolina. "We’re choosing the person who should be leader of the free world.”
He went on to list what he described as the qualities of a leader: integrity, sobriety, judgment, thoughtfulness, reliability and high ethical standards. “You’re going to have to look at that as Floridians and decide which of the people running for president on our side of the aisle includes the qualities of leadership.”
After touting his own experience in the private sector, turning around the 2002 Olympic Games and governing the state of Massachusetts, Romney pivoted to Gingrich.
"At the end of four years as speaker of the House, it was proven that he was a failed leader,” Romney said. “He had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that.… His fellow Republicans – 88% of his Republicans – voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.”
Every summer, Volkmar and Vera Kruger spend three weeks vacationing in the south of France or at a cool getaway in Denmark. For the other three weeks of their annual vacation, they garden or travel a few hours away to root for their favorite team in Germany's biggest soccer stadium.There's a simple explanation for this. Germany is Germany and the U.S. is the U.S. They have different economies, different economic systems, and different political cultures. And Germany has always been a powerhouse in Europe, or, at least since the end of the 19th century when it made a bid for international mastery and overtook Great Britain in the European balance of power. But it was the U.S. that stopped Germany's attempt at world hegemony and the U.S. was instrumental in rebuilding the German state into the powerhouse that it is today. The continent has been known for slow growth rates and high unemployment for decades, and a relatively austere fiscal policy over the last few years has enabled the German economy to better withstand recent international financial crises than its regional neighbors.
The couple, in their early 50s, aren't retired or well off. They live in a small Tudor-style house in this middle-class town about 30 miles northwest of Frankfurt. He's a foreman at a glass factory; she works part time for a company that tracks inventories for retailers. Their combined income is a modest $40,000.
Yet the Krugers have a higher standard of living than many Americans who have twice that income.
Their secret: little debt, frugal habits and a government that is intensely focused on high production, low inflation and extensive social services.
That has given them job security and good medical care as well as well-maintained roads, trains and bike paths. Both of their adult children are out on their own, thanks in part to Germany's job-training system and heavy subsidies for university education.
For instance, Volkmar's out-of-pocket costs for stomach surgery and 10 days in a hospital totaled just $13 a day. College tuition for their son runs about $260 a semester.
Germany, with its manufacturing base and export prowess, is the America of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. As the world's fourth-largest economy, it has thrived on principles that the United States seems to have gradually lost.
It has tightly managed its budget and adopted reforms — such as raising the retirement age — that some other Eurozone nations are just now being forced to undertake. And few countries can match Germany's capabilities for producing and exporting machinery and other equipment, or its infrastructure for research, apprenticeships and financing that support manufacturing.
"German industry is strong," said Volkmar, speaking in halting English as he occasionally looks up translations on a laptop. "People work good. That's why the German economy is best in Europe."
Those who contribute to, vote for, or otherwise support today's Democrat party need to catch up to the curve. These are not your father's Democrats. George McGovern would be a moderate in this party.Continue reading.
This is the party that rejected Hillary Clinton because she was not left enough. Instead it literally took a Marxist street agitator from the Chicago political machine and put him in the White House. Barack Obama was actually teaching the social manipulation methods of openly communist revolutionary Saul Alinsky to other Marxist revolutionaries for the radical communist front group ACORN. His weird name reflects his personal rejection of American culture. This is the person today's Democrat party wanted for President.
But it is not just him. The leader of the House Democrats is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ultraleft San Francisco Democrat totem. She is virtually as far left as Obama, and her public statements make Sarah Palin seem like a Ph.D. in economics. She keeps telling us that unemployment insurance payments are the best way to restore booming economic growth and prosperity.
When the American people rebuked Pelosi's ultraleft leadership as House Speaker, turning to the Republicans for the greatest House turnover since the New Deal, House Democrats responded with their own rebuke of the people. They voted Pelosi right back in as their leader, effectively saying to the American people that they were too stupid to know what they are doing, and that Pelosi's ultraleft San Francisco values best represent the Democrat party's ideals.
The Democrats also elected as DNC Chairman the unreasoned and far left screamer and name caller Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also makes Sarah Palin look like a rocket scientist. She touts as her achievements in the Florida legislature the Florida Residential Swimming Pools Safety Act, and state regulation of dry cleaning prices. She compiled during her career there the widely noted most liberal-left voting record of any state legislator. The Democrat party considered that the perfect qualification for party chairman.
If you think that increased government spending, deficits, and debt are the key to economic growth and prosperity, then this is the party for you. That is explicitly its economic policy, as crazy as that sounds. Democrats call it Keynesian economics. If you don't agree that increased government spending, deficits, and debt promote economic growth, then you shouldn't be voting for, contributing to, and supporting Democrats, and you shouldn't let your friends do so either.
This vote was an utter repudiation of Romney, and it absolutely will be repeated in state after state if something doesn’t change the basic dynamic of the race. It is true that Gingrich doesn’t have funds or organization, but he gets a ton of free media from the debates, and he has an electorate that simply wants someone other than Romney.RTWT.
That’s not to say that Romney’s money and organization don’t give him advantages -- they do. He remains the GOP front-runner, in my view, because it isn’t clear how well Gingrich can survive the long haul. But there’s a not-insubstantial chance, call it 35 percent, that Romney won’t be the nominee.
One of the hidden truths in professional football will make its annual appearance Sunday, bitten by frost, pelted by rain, awash in beauty.RTWT.
Advertisers don't want you to know it. Party planners don't want you to feel it. The NFL itself would rather you not recognize it. But with the intensity of a John Elway scramble and the passion of a Dwight Clark leap, it is a truth that cannot be denied.
Sunday is the greatest single day of the NFL season. Sunday is the real Super Bowl, only twice as much and twice as good.
The two conference championship games played Sunday will be more compelling than the one game played two weeks later, and it won't even be close.
Sunday is the Super Bowl minus the capital letters, Roman numerals and incessant glitz. Sunday is real football, played in real weather, in front of real fans, for real stakes.
I've never seen a Super Bowl winner cry. I've seen New Orleans Saints players weeping when they beat the Minnesota Vikings to qualify for their first Super Bowl.
I've never seen a Super Bowl quarterback quiver. I've seen Peyton Manning nearly faint from emotion as he staggered off the field after finally beating Tom Brady and qualifying for his first Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl has become so big, both teams feel as if they've won by simply being there, and often act and play like it. The conference championships are very different, very down, very dirty. Heroes are made, chokers are discovered, every victory is much sweeter, each defeat more devastating.
The conference championship games create so many great moments, those moments have been given enduring names. The Catch. The Drive. The Fumble. Even perhaps the most legendary postseason game of the modern was a Super Bowl semifinal game, the 1967 Ice Bowl in Green Bay.
When as the last time the Super Bowl produced something so memorable that it was given a name? The Wardrobe Malfunction?
This Sunday's conference title clashes will be more of the same, a Super Bowl without some highbrow casual fan staring at the TV shouting "Super!" while other fans spend time grazing in appetizer bowls.
Well, I don't know how "firm" that upper hand will be, considering the phenomenal bounce Gingrich will get coming out of South Carolina. But Romney's got the money and infrastructure, which I blogged about earlier. He needs to win Florida to recapture the momentum.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — For Mitt Romney, the South Carolina primary was not just a defeat, though it was most emphatically that. It was also where his campaign confronted the prospect it had most hoped to avoid: a dominant, surging and energized rival.
The rebirth of Newt Gingrich, a notion that seemed far-fetched only weeks ago, has upended a litany of assumptions about this turbulent race. It wounds Mr. Romney, particularly given his stinging double-digit defeat here on Saturday, and raises the likelihood that the Republican contest could stretch into the springtime.
For now the race goes on, with Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney joined by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. But Mr. Gingrich’s showing here suggests that Mr. Romney may no longer be able to count on his rivals splitting the opposing vote into harmless parcels, or on the support he is getting from the party establishment to carry him past a volatile conservative grass-roots movement.
At a minimum, it is clear that Republican voters, after delivering three different winners in the first three stops in the nominating contest, are in no rush to settle on their nominee.
Mr. Romney, whose message has been built around the proposition that he can create jobs, lost badly among voters who said they were very worried about the economy, according to exit polls.
He had trouble with evangelicals and voters searching for a candidate who shared their faith. He did not win over people who support the Tea Party movement. And he struggled with questions about his wealth over the past week and could not match Mr. Gingrich in exciting the passions of conservatives.
His arguments of electability — the spine of his candidacy — fell flat to a wide portion of the party’s base here.
For all that, by most traditional measures, Mr. Romney retains a firm upper hand in the Republican race as it moves into a protracted battle to win 1,144 delegates.
An Islamic militant group in Nigeria staged devastating bomb and gun assaults on government targets in the northern city of Kano, the latest in a series of attacks that appeared aimed at splitting Muslim and Christian communities in Africa's most populous country.Plus, at London's Daily Mail, "At least 143 dead after multiple bombs rock Nigerian city in attacks aimed at government targets."
The attacks, which took place late Friday and Saturday, paired bomb blasts with shootings. An Associated Press count, based on hospital records, said that at least 143 people had died. A high-ranking Nigerian security official, who asked not to be identified, said the final toll may be higher than 200.
The Islamic militia Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack. A Boko Haram spokesman, with a nom de guerre of Abul Qaqa, said that, during the chaos, Boko Haram had freed several of its members who had been in police custody without a trial.
The group, whose name means "Western Education is Sacrilege," has long targeted government workers and buildings in Africa's most populous nation. But since last month, the group has also stepped up attacks on Christians living in the country's overwhelmingly Muslim north, in an apparent effort to sow divisions between the two groups.
Newt Gingrich scores a primary victory that seemed improbable just days earlier, setting the stage for a contentious battle in the far-flung and multifaceted state of Florida.
One of the pieces of conventional wisdom we’ve been hearing a lot of in the last few weeks is that a long, tough fight will be better for the eventual winner of the Republican presidential contest than one that is quickly decided. Since Newt Gingrich’s win in South Carolina tonight ensures that the nomination can’t be sewn up in short order, that theory is going to be tested in the coming weeks and months.RTWT.
The proof for this thesis is supposedly the outcome of the 2008 Democratic primary battle in which an extended contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was seen as helping Obama in the long run.
Most observers believed Obama was toughened up the process in which he was forced to campaign all across the country. But there is a big difference between what happened to Obama and what Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich will undergo in the days ahead. Without the sympathetic if not adoring coverage that Obama got in the spring of 2008 from the mainstream press, the result of further GOP bloodletting will be two bleeding candidates no matter who turns out to be the winner.
It should be remembered that though Clinton criticized Obama for his shortcomings, most of the press did not choose to make much of the eventual Democratic nominee’s weaknesses. Even those stories that were reported extensively, such as his association with the radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright, were quickly put to rest after an Obama’s speech about race in which he skirted the basic issues.
Though we think of that race as being tough, both Obama and Clinton had to be careful not to be too tough since knocking around an African-American and a woman could be counter-productive.
But neither Republican will have these sorts of advantages. The mainstream media will, as they have in the last few weeks, eat up every negative story about either Romney or Gingrich and blow them out of proportion in a way that never happened to Obama or Clinton.
Seattle Central Community Colleges found itself hosting not just protesting students but also Occupy Seattle campers who had been rousted from a downtown park. The protesters soon settled on a campus plaza in some 70 tents. At first, administrators adopted a wait-and-see attitude. “Economic equity is sort of our mission,” said Jill Wakefield, the chancellor. “I’ve been at community colleges for 35 years. Nowhere did it prepare me to deal with 100 campers at one of our colleges.”Dirtbags.
The problems that had riddled urban encampments found their way to the college site. Garbage accumulated. Discarded syringes were spotted and marijuana smoke wafted, causing a day care center that abutted the plaza to stop allowing children to play outside. There were reports of a possible sexual assault. Administrators wrestled with how to proceed. “You pray for snow, you pray for rain, but these are hardy campers,” Dr. Wakefield said. Last month, four weeks after Seattle Central’s board banned camping on campus, protesters moved peacefully off the site. In a blog post, Dr. Wakefield wrote proudly that the encampment “was one of the very few protest camps in the world to resolve peacefully.”
In all three nominating contests so far, at least a plurality of voters have said the economy and electability were important factors. In Iowa and New Hampshire, such voters backed Mr. Romney. But in South Carolina, they backed Mr. Gingrich.And check the raw exit poll data at CNN. Fifty-five percent said they decided on their vote either today or in the last few days, and Gingrich won 44 percent of each of those groups respectively. And Gingrich won with conservatives and tea party supporters. It was a decisive victory.
Indeed, South Carolinians placed an even higher priority on beating President Obama than did their counterparts in Iowa and New Hampshire. About one-third of voters in each of the other two early states told pollsters that the ability to defeat Mr. Obama was the most important candidate quality. In South Carolina, 45% said that was their highest priority, according to exit poll data released by CNN. Half of them voted for Mr. Gingrich, while fewer than four in 10 voted for Mr. Romney.
Similarly, a far larger proportion of South Carolina voters said the economy was the most important issue than did their counterparts in Iowa and New Hampshire. If South Carolinians had followed the pattern of voters in previous states on which candidate they favored on the economy, that would have meant a big win for Mr. Romney. But they didn't. Four in 10 of those voters backed Mr. Gingrich Saturday, while one-third backed Mr. Romney.
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) -- Newt Gingrich had all the momentum on Saturday as South Carolinians were voting in their state's Republican primary.See also Nate Silver, "Gingrich Is Well-Positioned as South Carolina Votes."
A poll released Saturday morning showed the former House speaker's surge over the last week carrying him past Mitt Romney, who had been the front-runner in the state all month. The American Research Group poll shows Gingrich leading Romney by a 40%-26% margin. ARG's last poll, released Thursday, showed a virtual tie with Gingrich at 33% and Romney at 32%.
Two weeks ago, Romney's campaign was looking at two wins under its belt, a big lead in South Carolina, a bigger lead in Florida and the possibility of a clear path to the Republican presidential nomination.
As I've argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of.RTWT.
But, for practical purposes, understanding why the new lower class got started isn't especially important. Once the deterioration was under way, a self-reinforcing loop took hold as traditionally powerful social norms broke down. Because the process has become self-reinforcing, repealing the reforms of the 1960s (something that's not going to happen) would change the trends slowly at best.
Meanwhile, the formation of the new upper class has been driven by forces that are nobody's fault and resist manipulation. The economic value of brains in the marketplace will continue to increase no matter what, and the most successful of each generation will tend to marry each other no matter what. As a result, the most successful Americans will continue to trend toward consolidation and isolation as a class. Changes in marginal tax rates on the wealthy won't make a difference. Increasing scholarships for working-class children won't make a difference.
The only thing that can make a difference is the recognition among Americans of all classes that a problem of cultural inequality exists and that something has to be done about it. That "something" has nothing to do with new government programs or regulations. Public policy has certainly affected the culture, unfortunately, but unintended consequences have been as grimly inevitable for conservative social engineering as for liberal social engineering.
The "something" that I have in mind has to be defined in terms of individual American families acting in their own interests and the interests of their children.
When you hear someone touting a conspiracy theory in politics, you can safely discount it without paying much attention because 999 times out of 1000, there will be nothing to it. Sadly, we’ve gotten to the same point with cries of “racism” in politics. There’s almost never any validity to complaints about bigotry or racism and almost everyone who says otherwise is being deliberately dishonest.Continue reading.
The idea that the Republican Party of today is being compared to the Democrats of yesteryear who organized the KKK, encouraged the abortion of black children, and fought to keep black children from going to school has always been ridiculous on its face. Unlike the Democratic Party, the Republican Party was founded on fighting slavery and has nothing in its entire history, from its beginning to the present, to be ashamed of.
Even setting that aside, the idea that the Republican Party is racist is extraordinarily easy to refute. The only black man on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, was put there by a Republican. The first black Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was given the job by a Republican, as was the first black woman to be a Secretary of State, Condi Rice. Herman Cain, for a time, was at the top of the polls in the GOP race for President, Michael Steele just served a term as RNC chairman, Allen West keynoted CPAC, Walter Williams fills in for Rush Limbaugh, and Thomas Sowell was voted the most liked person on the Right by conservative bloggers. The number of black Americans doing extremely well in the Republican Party, despite the tiny percentage of black Americans who vote Republican, blows the idea that Republicans are racist straight to hell.
So, if conservatives aren’t racist, why do we hear ever-present claims that they are despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Simple. It’s pure politics.
I ran into an older, retired Israeli colleague who is a fine scholar in his field. We hadn’t met for 25 years and agreed to have coffee in a nearby Tel Aviv cafe. In the ensuing conversation I learned some key things about why current intellectual and political discussion is such a wreck.Continue reading.
The retired professor has read nothing I’ve written. He is on the left-wing politically, in the historic non-Communist sense, but his work has always been first-rate and untouched by any political slant. In addition, he has worked amicably with people of different views.
And that’s why I was dismayed by his first question: “Are you left-wing or right-wing?”
I sighed, partly because I hate this starting point of dividing people into two categories. A more appropriate question would have been: “what do you think of … ?” To classify someone is to decide in advance to agree or disagree with whatever they say. To ask someone their view makes it possible to listen and think about the quality of their ideas.
A scholar or analyst, whatever his personal views, should do work that is beyond politics.
Many years ago I wrote a scholarly article on American radical professors of the 1930s and 1940s. I was almost unable to find a single case in which anyone had even been accused of politicizing their academic work or classroom teaching. They viewed such behavior as inappropriate, and perhaps some were worried about how being outspoken might hurt their careers. At any rate, even during the McCarthy era people were pursued for their organizational memberships and not their classroom behavior.
Today, all those old issues of professional ethics have vanished. Professors may spend most of their time being propagandists: throw away scholarly standards and energetically persecute dissenters.
The "Underworld" movies could never exactly be called "fun," but Swedish directing duo Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein manage to bring a bit of visual affair to the bloodletting along with another quality previously in short supply — competence.I can dig it.
That either makes "Awakening" the best movie in the burgeoning "Underworld" franchise or the worst, depending, I suppose, on how deeply you value the series' previous strained attempts at myth-making.
CLEMSON, S.C. — With polls opening in less than 24 hours for the important South Carolina presidential primary election, the final Palmetto Poll shows Newt Gingrich leading over Mitt Romney in a gritty battle fraught with personal attacks and breaking news about the candidates’ personal lives.Continue reading.
That’s the finding of the third Clemson University 2012 Palmetto Poll, a sample of 429 South Carolina GOP voters who indicated they plan to vote Saturday. The telephone poll was initiated Jan. 13 and recalibrated Jan. 18-19 to measure changing dynamics. Twenty percent of the likely voters remain undecided.
“We expect a reaction by the electorate to the personal revelations about Gingrich to be registered on Saturday, however, we do not think it will be substantial enough to erase the lead Gingrich has over Romney,” said Clemson University political scientist Dave Woodard.
Continue reading.
After arriving here last week fresh off of what seemed to be two victories in a row in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Romney was suddenly confronting the prospect of leaving here as the winner of only one of the first three nominating contests.
Having been stripped of his victory in Iowa on Thursday after a recount that gave the state to Rick Santorum, Mr. Romney now is in danger of being defeated in Saturday’s primary here by Newt Gingrich, who had been declared dead not once but twice in the past year, including less than two weeks ago when he finished fifth in New Hampshire. A new Clemson University poll of South Carolina voters released on Friday showed Mr. Gingrich with a six-point lead over Mr. Romney.
At this stage of a primary election, campaigns work hard to manage expectations in order to put the best possible face on the actual voting results; Mr. Romney’s aides were no doubt being mindful of that as they spoke in relatively gloomy tones.
But, as Mr. Romney faced intensive attacks from all sides, renewed questions about the effects of his own stumbles and whether he is conservative enough for the grass roots of his party, there was a real aura of apprehension coursing through his campaign. With his prospects of wrapping the race up quickly apparently diminished, Mr. Romney and his strategists began preparing his staff, his supporters and his network of high-dollar financial bundlers for a longer and rougher march toward the nomination.
“I said from the very beginning, South Carolina is an uphill battle for a guy from Massachusetts,” Mr. Romney told reporters who traveled with him to Gilbert on Friday, a stark shift in tenor from his more buoyant demeanor a few days ago. “I knew that. We’re battling hard. The fact is that right now it looks like it’s neck and neck; that’s a pretty good spot to be in.”
We're in a fight to save what remains of the vision we have of America as conservatives. Whatever he's done, or not done, we can tell that Gingrich appreciates that particular vision. He is also showing himself to be an effective fighter. However he got there - the people that have voted decided it, not me - that's where he is. And he's demonstrating a willingness to fight for conservatism, but some of you bad-asses are afraid to fight for and with him?But RTWT.
The hell with you, punch your ticket and scurry to the back of the GOP's big government line like the losers that you actually are. I went into 2012 looking for a fight for the right reasons and the right cause - and as it stands today, there's only one guy left standing who looks anything like close to suitable to mix it up on our and conservativism's behalf. And, dammit, I'm going to fight with him, not run away like a coward because I want to look politically correct, or smart.
We'd still be a British colony if we had to rely upon what passes for a Republican and too damned many conservatives today, we're they around in 1776. Tremendous risks were undertaken to found absolutely the free-est, most glorious nation on Earth we call home. But you can't risk taking a chance on a former Speaker of the House to simply make a beginning on trying to turn it around?
Hell, you may as well tear up your passports and citizenship papers, too - you don't look like half of what I always thought a traditional American was. You're just another loser willing to turn the other cheek as big government smacks you around, because it's the easy and oh so smart thing to do.
Mitt Romney just put out this press release — a compendium of Newt Gingrich's "grandiose thoughts" over the years. It's pretty amusing, e.g., "I Have An Enormous Personal Ambition. I Want To Shift The Entire Planet. And I’m Doing It. … I Represent Real Power."
The occasion for the press release is, no doubt, the discussion of grandiosity at last night's debate. Rick Santorum started it. The moderator, John King, had just pointed out that Gingrich has been saying there should be only one conservative in the race now off the seemingly inevitable Romney nomination, and it should be Gingrich, because Santorum doesn't have "any of the knowledge for how to do something on this scale."
Newt Gingrich hit back at allegations of impropriety with a robust debate performance that, judging by a standing ovation it received a South Carolina audience, instantly improved his chances of winning the state’s primary on Saturday.8:20pm PST: The Los Angeles Times has a report, "Gingrich spars with CNN, then his GOP rivals in S.C. debate."
I saw you at the police station and it breaks my heart to say.
Your eyes had wandered off to something distant, cold and grey.
I guess you didn't see it coming,
Someone's gotten used to slumming.
Dreaming of the golden years,
I see you had to change careers.
Far away, but we both know it's somewhere.
I saw you on the back page of some free press yesterday.
The driftwood in your eyes had nothing short of love for pay.
I know you from another picture,
Someone with the most conviction.
We used to read the funny papers,
Fool around and pull some capers.
Not today,
I send a message to her.
A message that I'm coming, coming to pursue her.
Down home country
I rest my face on your bed.
I've got you ten times over
I'll chase you down
'Till you're dead.
I saw you on a TV station and it made me want to pray.
An empty shell of loveliness is now dusted with decay.
What happened to the funny paper?
Smiling was your money maker.
Someone ought to situate her,
Find a way to educate her.
All the way, time to come and find you.
You can't hide from me girl, so never mind what I do.
Down home country
I rest my face on your bed.
I'll chase you down
'Till you're dead.
I met my soul mate country
And I left it all for your head.
I saw you in the churchyard,
There was no time to exchange.
You were getting married and it felt so very strange.
I guess I didn't see it coming,
Now I guess it's me who's bumming.
Dreaming of the golden years,
You and I were mixing tears.
Not today, not for me but someone.
I never could get used to, so now I will refuse to.
Down home country I
Rest my face on your bed.
I met my soul mate country
And I left it all for your head
I got my best foot forward and I'll chase you down
'Til you're dead
Last December, a top anti-Semitism watchdog group accused the Center for American Progress, a prominent Washington think tank, of peddling anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic material on its Web site and Twitter feeds. Six days later, President Obama met for coffee with the man who oversaw the offending content — Faiz Shakir, the site’s editor-in-chief.The radical left hates Israel. It's no surprise that such anti-Semitism reaches right up to the top advisers to the White House.
That the president met with Shakir amid the ballooning scandal illustrates just how close the administration is with CAP. Now that association may come back to haunt the White House, as three leading Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — have accused CAP and its staff of publishing “anti-Israel,” “hateful” and “toxic anti-Jewish” material.
The Jewish organizations’ ire is directed even more strongly at Media Matters for America — another influential, activist liberal Washington group. But CAP’s failings are more significant, because it has been a revolving door to the administration.
CAP founder John Podesta piloted Obama’s 2008 presidential transition team and now holds a State Department advisory role; founding board member Carol Browner served as Obama’s energy czar. CAP Action Fund President Jennifer Palmieri just joined the White House as deputy communications director.
And Shakir has had multiple meetings with White House officials, including one last August with the National Security Council’s Quintan Wiktorowicz.
Making these close ties to the administration especially troubling is CAP’s intensely anti-Israel slant.
Speaking with the Jerusalem Post recently about CAP and Media Matters, the American Jewish Committee’s Jason Isaacson said, “Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints — but they’re not free to slander with impunity . . . References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”
The Wiesenthal Center found the writers “are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” The ADL noted: “Most of their blogs come from a perspective of blaming Israel for the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.”
The controversy reached a new height over the use of the term “Israel firster.” The phrase, popularized in White Power newsletters in the 1970s and ’80s, accuses American supporters of Israel of being more loyal to the Jewish state than to their own country. Later adopted by fringe pro-Palestinian groups, the slur has since become common on extremist white supremacist and anti-Israel Web forums.
Then it surfaced in writings put out by Media Matters and CAP. “Waiting 4 hack pro-Dem blogger to use this [link] 2 sho Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$” wrote Zaid Jilani, a reporter for CAP’s site, on Twitter last July.
At Media Matters, Senior Fellow MJ Rosenberg openly delights in using the term. “Cool. A major journalist, who I won’t name, gives me credit for making term ‘Israel Firster’ acceptable. I wish. But I’ll do my best,” he wrote on Twitter.
While Rosenberg continues to use the term, the uproar prompted CAP’s Jilani to apologize, saying he hadn’t realized the connotations. CAP’s blog avowed, “We don’t endorse the term ‘Israel firsters’ or demonize the Jewish state on ThinkProgress. Further, there is no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel ‘hate speech’ written anywhere on this blog.”
But American Jewish groups disagreed. The ADL pointed to a CAP article that suggested the Israel lobby had pushed America into war with Iraq. In another, its Middle East Progress director, Matt Duss, called “the entire Israeli occupation” of Gaza “a moral abomination” like the Jim Crow South.
The AJC noted the odious “Israeli apartheid” references, such as a Jilani tweet: “So DC ‘liberals’ are going to spend a lot of time defending Obama against the charge that he’s not supportive enough of Israeli apartheid.”
CAP hasn’t distanced itself from these comments or even acknowledged that they’re anti-Israel. If it deems them acceptable public comment, one wonders what the internal dialogue is like at the think tank — and among the alumni who have gone on to the Obama administration.
Trevor Potter is an unlikely repeat guest for a late-night comedy show. As the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, the courtly Washington lawyer is a leading expert on campaign finance law — not the kind of material that generates a lot of laughs.Well, I kind of like all the ads actually.
So the fact that he's appeared seven times on "The Colbert Report" in the last year, helping host Stephen Colbert set up his own "super PAC" as part of a mischievous political parody, underscores an unexpected development in the 2012 presidential race:
Super PACs have seized the zeitgeist.
An indirect outgrowth of the Supreme Court ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, the independent political groups have mushroomed in the last year. They are now dominating not just the action in key primary states such as South Carolina, but the political conversation. In the last month, the number of Google searches for the term "super PAC" was about five times higher than the last year's monthly average.
Spending by such organizations has exceeded $27 million already this year, according to the FEC, much of it going to biting television ads. Pummeled by super PACs aligned with their rivals, the Republican presidential contenders are now loudly denouncing their influence.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in recent days that all of the candidates wished the outside organizations would disappear and that their outsized sway was "a very bad idea."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was forced to disavow an error-riddled documentary aired by a super PAC run by his former aides, while he and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have had to defend themselves against attacks by Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC. At a campaign stop in Columbia, S.C., this week, Santorum accused Romney of sending "his henchmen" to spread disinformation.
The complaints mark a sharp turnabout for Republicans, who had largely heralded the Citizens United decision, which allowed unlimited corporate and union spending on campaigns. (The campaigns themselves remain under strict fundraising limits.)
The candidates are not opposed to unlimited fundraising but, once confronted with how the decision is playing out, have blamed one another, not the court.
